Yes. They started the rudeness and I was done being the polite one. It was clearly a misunderstanding that led to a mistake on their part but once I made that obvious to them, they doubled down.
I was getting more and more blunt, think ‘so what you’re telling me…’ type tone. And then I heard myself and internally cringed.
Yes the fuck up was theirs alone. But having worked in a similar role 20 years prior, I remembered how one interaction like the one we were having would completely ruin your day.
She was flushed red in the face and neck and I remembered being young and making the (wrong) decision to double down when I’m caught out in a fuck up rather than admitting fault and working on a remedy. It’s a lesson only learnt in time and humiliation.
I think she’d learnt it at that point but it was too late. And an angry middle aged woman ranting at her was not going to do anything.
So I stopped and said ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be speaking to you like this. I’ve already had a bad day and this has made it so much worse. But that’s got nothing to do with you and you don’t deserve to be spoken like that by customers. When’s the next available appointment?’
She gave me a curt ‘that’s ok’ - and believe me that almost made me snap again, but we sorted it out.
I noted the next time I got a confirmation for my appointment that they’d included my suburb in my surname - I think to differentiate between me and another customer (the reason for the crossed wires). That’s a win. But I hope she learnt a lesson about seeking truth rather than victory and I hope she wasn’t too upset.